


Spider gone rogue

by yourgaydad



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Hurt Peter Parker, Injury, Parent Tony Stark, Running Away, Teenage Rebellion, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:11:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13508928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourgaydad/pseuds/yourgaydad
Summary: At this point web-slinging through the city without thinking about curfew, worrying about unexpected calls and ignoring the constant flow of Ned’s rambling, seemed like an impossible dream.Peter decided to make it a reality. Even if only for couple of days, he simply needed a break.The plan he came up with was perfect in its simplicity.***The title might be misleading, but it has nothing to do with the Rogue Avengers





	Spider gone rogue

The evil mass of little green spheres was staring at him as if waiting for a good moment to attack. Their unsettling smell was too subtle for most people but it hit his nostrils with every breath he took. The slimy moisture they were covered in made the dreadful color even worse.

“Eat your veggies, Peter” May said with an exasperated sigh. She was watching quietly for the whole dinner as her nephew pushed the peas around his plate and she had enough.

“I’m not five, May” the teenager replied with an eye roll and stabbed his fork into the green mass.

“You sure? Would have fooled me, eating your dinner like that.”

“You know I hate peas…” he whined and slumped on the table, moving his plate aside.

“They are good for your bones, Peter. Eat the peas or no patrolling tonight.”

Peter sighed once more and looked pleadingly at his aunt but she stayed merciless.

Ever since May found out about him being the Spider-Man she started coming up with more and more rules that he had to fulfill to go out patrolling. There was almost twenty of them already, all written down and put up on the fridge. Any superhero related terms were replaced with things like ‘video games’ and ‘hanging out with Ned’ so for everyone beside the two of them May was just very strict about Peters free time.

He thought that telling May about his super healing would make her worry less. Instead, after a very heated discussion with Tony Stark, she got very concerned about his fast metabolism and how he needed to keep the calories high so his body had the energy to heal.

Rather than it being easier to patrol, without the need to sneak out or lie constantly, it became much more complicated and was starting to irritate Peter.

He hoped that she would chill a bit when summer break started but well… He was wrong. 

And 1 AM curfew during holidays was un-fucking-believable.

 

Beside May’s superheroing rules there was also Mr. Stark.

When Peter declined the offer to join the Avengers he half expected Mr. Stark to stop checking up on him. It turned out he only started to do it more often.

The teenager suspected it had something to do with the way Mr. Stark reacted when he told him what exactly happened on the night of Homecoming. At some point of their conversation the engineer stood up, dragged Peter to his workshop and started working on Spider-Man suit while the boy continued talking. Collapsing buildings were a sensitive topic since then.

Obviously, Peter appreciated his dedication and the time they spend together, but… Sometimes Tony got too engaged in Spider-Man’s well being for his liking.

Just the other night, Peter was in the middle of a car chase after a big bank robbery which he came too late to stop when Karen announced an incoming call from Tony Stark.

“FRIDAY just told me that you broke some ribs ten minutes ago and are still swinging around.” Tony’s voice showed his irritation. “What the hell is wrong with you kid?”

Peter barely missed crashing into wall when the car took a sharp turn.

“Well- Karen said they were just cracked...” He almost brushed the ground, swinging under traffic lights. “And I’m in the middle of a car chase Mr. Stark! I can’t just stop!” Peter could hear the other man sighing heavily and would roll his eyes if not the situation he was in right now.

“Just- Wrap it up and then you are done for tonight.”

“But-”

“Don’t ‘but’ me kid! If you are not home in thirty minutes I will disengage your suit.”

“Mr. Stark…”

“Thirty minutes, kid!” The line went dead. 

Peter let out a groan and started furiously webbing up the car ahead of him.

Dealing with both May and Mr. Stark on an almost daily basis was a lot. 

 

In addition to all their bullshit there was also Ned.

Ned was his best friend and having him as his guy in the chair was awesome, but… He was also overly excited about every little thing. Absolute shit at keeping secrets. And often couldn’t tell when to stop.

Being almost shot because your guy in the chair was breaking apart some new Star Wars fan theory and kept talking while Peter was handling a tricky, gun involved situation, wasn’t perfect.

Sometimes Ned’s personality was just too much.

 

That was why after one particularly rough day of everybody telling him what he should and shouldn’t do, Peter simply had had enough.

At this point web-slinging through the city without thinking about curfew, worrying about unexpected calls and ignoring the constant flow of Ned’s rambling, seemed like an impossible dream.

Peter decided to make it a reality. Even if only for couple of days, he simply needed a break.

***

The plan he came up with was perfect in its simplicity.

After a long night of going through the Spider-Man suit code, Peter found exactly sixty seven cases in which Karen was bound to contact Mr. Stark. And canceled all of them. Next up was tracking, which went easier the second time around, although he found not just one or two but five hidden trackers. Incoming calls ended up disabled as well.

By the time sun started to rise Peter was sure that no notifications would be sent out and if somebody tried to check, the suit would seem to be offline.

“Peter, I repeat once again, Mr. Stark won’t be happy with you” the calm voice of Karen made Peter laugh lightly.

“Don’t worry Karen, it’s just for few days. I’m going to turn everything back on and he won’t ever know.”

***

The only hard thing about his plan would be lying to Ned, but it just worked out perfectly that his friend was out of town for the whole week and would be too busy on his family trip to find out.

Well, Peter didn’t feel perfectly fine with lying to either May or Mr. Stark, but… It wasn’t the first time.

“Hey Peter, what's up?” Tony sounded anxious, as if asking did you fuck some shit up?

“Hello, Mr. Stark! I wanted to let you know that May is taking me out of town for couple of days and I won’t be webbing around. Just so you wouldn’t worry” excitement in Peters voice was real, only for a different reason.

“Well, that’s great. I’m a bit busy here so… Have fun, kid.”

“Oh, I will” Peter said to himself with a smirk.

“May?” he called, stepping out of his room and noticing the woman on the couch.

“I just got a call from Mr. Stark” he jumped over the back and sat beside her. “He invited me to the Compound for few days. We will do some tests on the suit, maybe come up with some neat new functions. And I will get more hand-to-hand combat training that we’ve been doing the last time. Isn’t that cool?”

“So you want to abandon your poor old aunt?” She said but smiled the next moment and ruffled his hair. “Sounds great, sweetie.”

Peter could tell all she was thinking was him, safe and staying off the streets for those few days. He ignored the guilt building up in his stomach.

***

Peter wanted to laugh out loud when he plummeted to the ground and the brisk night air moved around him. That feeling of freedom- oh, how he missed it the past few months.

Now there would be no unexpected calls. No curfew. No worried aunts or mentors.

The only thing he had to remember about was to stay out of the news and possibly low key on social media. He could do that. Easy peasy!

It was gonna be awesome! 

***

Three days later everything was still going perfectly fine.

Peter patrolled at nights. Starting around 9pm he had multiple muggings, robberies and other little crimes to stop. Between midnight and 2am there was an increase of drunk people on their way home. This part of night included a lot of stopping fights, preventing people from driving drunk and giving directions to some of the more confused. Next up was a rather calm hour or so when he had time to grab some take-away from a taco place open all night and ate it on a rooftop or fire exit stairs. The minute he took the last bite, he was back on the streets, ready to take on the wave of car stealing that was apparently a big problem in the early morning hours.

Not wanting someone to get a picture of him, Peter finished the patrols by 5am. He searched for a nice looking rooftop, best with a little hidden space, changed into his regular clothes and curled around his backpack for few hours of sleep.

***

The teenager woke up around midday, sun high on the sky and air pleasantly warm, only his body a bit stiff after sleeping on the concrete. The feeling of freedom was still enough to make him excited for no special reason and answer the ache in his limbs with a single stretch.

It was going to be another great day. 

Well.

Until it wasn’t.

***

It started rather innocently. 

He lost his phone. 

Simple as it was, spider-senses and super reflex couldn’t help when you got distracted and left your phone laying around in the middle of New York. By the time he realized what he had done and went back it was nowhere to be found. 

Not too big of a deal, right?

He talked to May every day before that, making sure she wouldn’t worry and coming up with cover stories of his time with Mr. Stark. She surely wouldn’t panic if he didn’t call for a day or two. And Mr. Stark kept offering him the newest StarkPhone for months now, whenever his old one was losing connection or wouldn’t turn on. Now he could accept it.

Everything would be fine.

***

Except that losing his phone wasn’t the rock bottom of that day. Nope. Absolutely not.

So far, while patrolling on his little vacation, Peter somehow got away with nothing more than couple of bruises. Until that night. 

He was swinging through the part of city packed with clubs and pubs, ready to take on the drunk youth of New York, when he noticed a woman alone at a bus stop. He knew no bus was going to come for the next few hours and she didn’t look good. Peter changed his course swiftly and landed in front of her. 

The woman was actually just a girl, probably only few years older than he was. She was laying sideways on a bench and didn’t even steer as he approached her slowly.

“Miss? Excuse me… Can you hear me? Hello?”

He was right beside her now and fortunately could hear her breathing, but that wasn’t good enough to just leave her be. 

“Hey!” Peter snapped his fingers in front of her face, just as Tony sometimes did to get his attention, but she still wasn’t responding.

“Okay… Umm- Lady? I’m going to shake your shoulder, okay?” he stated loudly and did as he said but still nothing happened.

“What’s wrong with her, Karen? I can’t smell any alcohol…” he mumbled, while trying to wake the girl up.

“She appears to be sleeping, but it might be drug induced.”

He barely had time to register Karen’s voice when somebody started shouting from down the street. 

“Hey! What are you doing with my girl? Leave her alone!”

A guy in his late-twenties was quickly getting closer. Peter could already sense the bitter smell of alcohol. He took few steps ahead and stood in between him and the girl.

“Could you stop there, please?” he said calmly, when the guy was about fifteen meters away.

“Yeah… I am fucking stopping, right now. Get lost you freak. That girl is mine” the guy sneered and kept walking.

“I did ask you nicely” Spider-Man shrugged and took a step forward while out-stretching his arms.

As the guy tried to take another step he almost fell over, both his feet webbed to the ground.

“What the fuck?” he spit out and glared furiously at the masked vigilante. “You stupid brat!”

“I really hope you treat your real friends better than this” Peter said as he turned back to the girl, ignoring the slurs that had been screamed at him. 

“I would recommend checking her purse for an ID” Karen was back as if nothing happened. 

“Isn’t that a tid bit invasive, Karen?”

“She doesn’t require to be hospitalized. Her state is stable. She would probably feel better to wake up in her own bed rather than at a police station.”

That did convince Peter enough to reach for her purse and take out her wallet.

“Hello, Susan from… New Haven, Connecticut? I can’t take her to New Haven, Karen!”

“The red card might be a Queens College Student Card. It should have a dorm address on.”

He was reaching for the card when his skin tingled with the weird but familiar feeling and he instantly knew what was about to happen. 

He was fast. He could get out of the way. But he wasn’t fast enough to stop the gun before it fired. And he wasn’t fast enough to move the unconscious girl out of the way. So he hadn’t moved.

Even when he expected the bullet to hit, the actual feeling was a lot to take in.

He could feel the metal going through his skin and tearing apart the muscles right above his right hip bone. It kept going and going until the skin on his stomach ripped open.

Peter spun around and shot a web at the gun, jerking it out of the man’s grip in one swift motion. He let it fell to the ground and webbed it there, maybe a bit excessively, but he didn’t want somebody to pick it up. Next up he webbed the guys arms to his torso, redid the webbing on his feet and finished with covering his mouth.

Then the pain hit him and he gritted his teeth, a silent groan escaping his mouth. 

It hurt like fucking hell.

Despite his senses going crazy and warm blood flooding his front and back, he focused enough to web up both bullet holes, struggling more with the one on his back as turning around only brought him more pain.

Once he wasn’t going to bleed out he took few shaky breaths and calmed down enough to hear Karen talking to him.

“-call Mr. Stark? You need immediate medical atte-”

“No Karen! We are not calling anyone! Gonna be fine, okay?” He took a deep breath and almost cried out in pain. Fuck.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do” he said while slowly bending over, shit shit shit, and picking up the wallet and ID he had dropped earlier. “You call the cops to come and pick up this guy” he pointed at the webbed up man, who was staring at him murderously. “We get our friend Susan home. I climb to a nice, safe place and we rest. Sounds like a plan?”

“I advise visiting a hospital.”

“What? You said her state was stable!” Peter looked at Susan who was still asleep and breathing without trouble.

“Susan does not require medical attention but you do, Peter. Immediate” if Karen could sound irritated she would right now. Fortunately, her voice was programmed to stay calm and reassuring.

“Okay. New plan. I rest here for few minutes. Then we go on with the old plan.”

***

Luckily, Susan’s dorm was just few blocks away. Peter was glad, because he didn’t feel good enough to swing through the city while holding an unconscious girl, but didn’t want to leave her with the police either.

Peter used the fireman’s carry so many times in his short superheroing career that he could have done it in sleep. Doing it in an extreme amount of pain felt similar. 

They got to the building without trouble and, lucky again, Susan lived in a room on the first floor. That meant only one flight of stairs before he could rest.

The door opened rather quickly after his knocking and Susan’s roommate was looking at him with wide eyes. Peter was a bit too tired for pleasantries.

“Hello, I brought Susan home” he walked into the dark room not waiting for an invitation.

“Which bed? This one?” he mumbled to himself and again, didn’t wait for an answer. Trying to be gentle he put Susan on top of the covers.

The roommate was still standing by the door when he turned around. Peter took a deep breath, only to regret it when a sharp pain went through his body. He stood still for a moment.

“Peter, you need to tell her what happened. Then you will get to rest. Accordingly to the plan” Karen’s soft voice brought him back to reality. “You can do it.”

“Okay, okay…” he blinked few times before starting to talk.

Susan’s roommate not only listened closely, not taking her eyes of him and nodding to everything he said, but after he finished she pointed out his poor state and asked if he needed anything. 

“Your blood sugar is low. You haven’t eaten in over six hours. You need food and water” Karen supplied.

And that was how he ended half-sitting, half-lying on the roof of a college dorm with a plastic bag full of snacks, bottle of water and a can of coke at 2am.

***

“Peter…”

 

“Peter wake up…”

 

“Someone might see you here. You need to move.”

 

The boy slowly drifted out of sleep as the soft voice kept nagging him.

He didn’t realize where he was right away, but as he moved to sit up, the pain in his right side was enough to make him remember last night.

“Time?” he slurred under the mask.

“It’s 6am. Accordingly to my research you have 30 to 60 minutes before most of the students in this dorm will be awake. More importantly, you can be clearly seen from the surrounding buildings.”

Apparently, he fell asleep before he could eat anything, as the snacks and drinks were still in the bag. The constant but much lighter pain in his side did not exclude his stomach rumbling. He quickly ate a chocolate bar and drank the whole bottle of water before cautiously getting on his feet.

“Not too bad… Not too bad at all…” he mumbled as he tested the range of his movements and pain levels. He did, of course, still feel the pain in the area the bullet went through, but it was nothing near as bad as yesterday. It was even better than he would have expected. 

“Anything I should know, Karen?”

“It seems that all internal bleeding has stopped and your organs regenerated to some extent. Further rest and sugar intake is highly advised.”

“Great. Designate a route to wherever I left my backpack, please. And try to keep it out of the main streets, Karen.”

He might have not feel a lot of pain when swinging through the city, but he was still extremely tired. When he found his backpack, webbed on the roof of a tall office building, all he wanted was to go back to sleep. He listened to Karen as she told him to put a t-shirt and jeans over his suit, before taking off his mask and falling asleep, hidden in between vents.

***

When the last meeting of the day finally ended it was almost 7pm and Tony Stark dreamed of nothing more than going home, not talking to people and demolishing some stuff, ideally with a cold and strong drink close by. 

He was almost in his workshop when a single phone call absolutely changed his plans for the evening.

“Hello Aunt May, what a great surprise!” he answered the phone jokingly.

“Hi Tony” calling somebody by last name was weird after slapping them. “I know you boys are probably busy playing with your toys, but could you tell Peter to call me? His phone probably died, I couldn’t reach him for the last two days. He didn’t even answer to any of my texts and-” 

It shouldn’t take Tony this long to catch up but he was tired and Mays cheerful chatter was hard to process. 

“What?” is all he mumbled at first. 

“I know he is okay with you, but I still need to hear him from time to time you know…” 

“May…What do you mean? Peter- Peter is not with me.”

“Not funny, Stark” there was a moment of silence and then a small tremble in her voice.

“He told me you guys were going out of town for few days. Tuesday morning, I think? I didn’t hear from him since then” he was trying hard to remain calm, but decided to skip getting snacks from kitchen and walked straight to his workshop. 

“That's when he told me you invited him upstate for the week. He left that afternoon” worried May was very close to furious and slapping May.

“Is he- Is he playing hooky? From us?” Peter was easily the best behaved teen he knew, even if he didn’t know many of them, and it just didn’t seem like him. 

“Why the hell would he do that?” now May sounded less worried and much more pissed off.

“I’m gonna find that little punk and bring his sorry ass back so you can ground him forever.”

Tony finally got to his workshop and transferred the call to speakers as he began to pull up stats from Spider-Man suit. To his outright surprise it seemed to be offline and the last registered activity was from Monday night. But that couldn’t be right…

“He wouldn’t…” Tony mumbled while typing furiously line after line of code, trying to connect with the suit. 

“But of course he fucking did!” now Tony was even more enraged than May. “He hacked the suit! Shut me off! What was he thinking?”

“You mean… A 16 year old hacked the suit that you made?” the woman was still mad but also quite awed. She knew her nephew was extremely smart, but… That was really impressive. 

“Well, I didn’t expect him to try and hack in when designing it but... Yeah, the kid is fucking good” Tony sighed tiredly. “I’m gonna need a bit of time May, will let you know as soon as I’ve got something. And don’t worry too much. His phone is a piece of junk, it probably just crushed completely and that’s all. I will find him in no time.”

“Okay… Yeah… I- I will call Ned. See if he knows anything about it.”

“FRIDAY, news and social media. You know what to do” Tony said when May hang up and got straight to work himself. 

He had to stay focused and busy. Otherwise his mind would quickly supply with all the terrible things that could have happened to Peter and… No. He couldn’t take that.

***

“Sensors around the wound were mostly destroyed but an infection is being detected. You didn’t disinfect the wound before it closed, Peter” Karen said, calm as always. “I think it would be a good moment to end our vacation and go home.”

Peter was rubbing on his face, trying to force the tiredness away. He somehow slept for the whole day. There wasn’t exactly anywhere he had to be, so he just let himself rest, opening eyes few times through the day, but barely moving at all.

“Yeah, I guess so, but… I haven’t done much last night and I feel kind of bad about it? You know, Karen? And I’m totally- umm- almost back to normal. I barely feel it anymore…” 

Peter was examining his stomach through the hole made in fabric by the bullet. The skin might have been a bit reddened and it hurt under touch, but there was no trace of a bleeding wound.

“It’s already late anyway. One more patrol and in the morning we go home.”

“You also haven’t called May in over 48 hours. She will start to worry.”

“She thinks I’m with Mr. Stark, it’s okay” Peter belittled, but the bitter feeling of guilt was there.

“Let’s get going Karen. I think we should pay Susan a visit, make sure she is okay.”

Before he even finished the sentence he was running towards the roof edge. He jumped of and let himself fall for a long moment before shooting the webs out.

That feeling would never get boring.

***

“There are no news report on Spider-Man from the last days, but I found some mentions on twitter” the music turned down and FRIDAY’s voice echoed through the room. “The most recent one is from 1.58am today. When Spider-Man escorts your friend home after a party followed by a sequence of emoticons, posted by Tarr Nazarian. She is a student at Queens College and lives in a dorm off campus.”

“So he really is just webbing around and being a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man? All this hacking and lying he did... To what... Avoid curfew?” Tony shook his head disapprovingly but he also felt relief. The kid was okay. He was just rebelling like a damned teenager that he was.

“Text May the tweet and say I would call soon.”

Even if Tony didn’t expect Peter to go rogue, he did put few special items in the suit. The kid took out all five of the operating trackers that were now showing the location of his bedroom, but he couldn’t know about the extra one. The only thing was, with no connection to the suit, Tony had no way of activating it. But he would find one.

“Sir. Tarr Nazarian just mentioned Spider-Man in a tweet again, there is also a picture. I’m putting it up on the main screen.”

It was a selfie. The girls both grinned looking awestruck, with a Spider-Man hanging upside down in between them. All three were doing his trademark hand sign as if shooting a web. 

The number of times Tony shook his head or gritted his teeth was uncountable this evening. 

Here he was, worrying if Peter was even still alive, and the kid was taking selfies with his fans. 

Just fucking typical.

***

“I’m kind of relieved he really is just playing hooky, but it doesn’t make it okay” May was on the phone with Tony while walking back and forth in the kitchen.

“Certainly not. He can’t just disappear with nobody knowing where to. Did you talk with that Ned kid?” she could say that Tony was treating it as seriously as she was herself. Even if May blamed him after learning the truth about Spider-Man, she was now glad that her nephew got somebody like the genius engineer in his life.

“Yeah, instead of finding out anything about Peter I just made Ned panic. He doesn’t know anything.”

There was a moment of silence before May spoke again.

“Will you still try to find him, Tony? I know you must ha-”

“Of course I will, May. Even just so I can go and pick him up in person, drag him home and make him absolutely regret trying something like this again. And I know it’s not my place to do, but I’m going to scold him hard. No doubt about that.”

His rant made May laugh. Discussing reprimanding a kid with Tony Stark would do that to a person.

***

So... maybe he should have gone home without patrolling that one more time. Peter could see now that it wasn’t his smartest decision. Well, it still took him most of the night and one specific hit to realise his mistake.

Precisely speaking, it was a freakingly strong punch that landed somewhere very close to his right kidney. And even a freakingly strong punch shouldn’t have done this to his enhanced body. But well... It did.

In one moment he was standing in middle of the shop that got broken into, webbing one of the robbers to a wall. And in the next he was curled on the floor, tears streaming under his mask and in so much pain he couldn’t even breathe.

For a minute everything seemed to stop. The feeling in his side was so intense he didn’t notice the man standing above him. Even if he had registered the figure, he wouldn’t be able to stop the kick that came.

He blacked out.

The next thing, he was conscious enough to notice, was the sound of police sirens in the distance and Karen’s voice in his ears. He somehow managed to get up, even though his vision was still partially black, and slowly stumbled to the exit.

The police was almost there. He had to leave.

“There is an empty building few blocks away, Peter” Karen’s words started to make sense again. “You can get your backpack on the way there. Start moving Peter. Now.”

He gritted his teeth and shot out a web. He could do it.

***

“I’m getting seriously pissed off with that punk. He disabled and changed so many things it’s hard to find a way to activate the tracker” Tony was close to snapping his keyboard in half. Damn Peter Parker. That motherfucking nerd. “I’m engaging other solutions. FRIDAY is running face recognition through the cctv cameras in real time. I also send out few drones to scan rooftops and other high situated places for Spider-Man and-”

“Tony! Tony, take a breath please. It’s 2am, you should take a break. Get some sleep” May felt a bit guilty over putting all that work on Stark when she was just sitting there and waiting for Peter to return. “He has been out for few days and he is okay. I know the kid can be irresponsible, but he has some sense of self-preservation, you know. He wouldn’t stay out injured. And maybe he comes home in the morning?” May sure did hope so. Another day without a word from Peter would be too much.

“I’m getting into the car right now. Happy is driving me to the city” he said as if May didn’t even speak, but then added “You get some sleep too. ”

***

Thank god windows in the building have been removed for the demolition. Otherwise he would have just crashed through the glass and he didn’t need that right now.

As soon as Peter was inside he sat down and started taking the suit off. He didn’t even wait for Karen to finish the sentence. Her words were slowly losing sense again. She have said earlier that he would for sure be alone in here and that was all that mattered.

He changed into jeans and t-shirt, put the suit in his backpack and cautiously laid down. His back on the bare floor, arms stretched out as if wanting to cover more ground.

The chill of concrete seeping into his body was exactly what he needed. Just as he let the pain take over his body, he swiftly slid into a weird state, somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness.

***

When Peter woke up he was freezing. He was laying exactly as when he fell asleep, as if he didn’t even move a muscle in that time.

He tried to get up and, thank god, it wasn’t ‘i'm gonna black out’ bad.

The sweatshirt he put on didn’t help much, even with the hood on he still got the chills. 

The watch he kept in his backpack said it was 8.17am and it was definitely time to go home.

The building got a wide staircase and with web shooters still on his wrists, he was down in few seconds. After getting outside he jumped over the high metal fence into a quiet street and started walking towards the closest train station. He was absolutely not swinging home.

Turned out, he assessed his state a bit too highly and jumping few meters up certainly didn’t help. After only few minutes of walking he felt dizzy and a bit sick. He should have probably drink some water.

He was walking by an empty playground and decided to sit down for a minute. Peter pulled down his hood and took a deep breath. He needed to get his act together. May couldn’t see him like that. 

***

“Boss, I’ve got a match for Peter Parker.”

Tony shook out of his half-sleep and looked at the monitor. 

Differently to the few previous alerts, it really was Peter. The camera that caught him was on the other side of a street so Tony couldn’t tell what exactly was he doing, all he could see was the kid sitting on a bench by some obscure playground, his backpack laying beside him.

“Fri, tell Happy to start the car and give him the address. Inform me if he moves and, most importantly, don’t lose him. Also, text May the Spiderling will be home soon” Tony said, already on his way to the elevator. 

***

Twenty minutes later, Peter was still on the bench. He really wanted to move and be home already, but it was so hard to get up.

He was sitting with head low, hands on his knees, trying to fight a wave of nausea when somebody walked up to him.

If the posh shoes that came into his view weren’t enough to recognize Tony Stark, the harsh voice was unmistakable.

“Are you having fun?”

He slowly looked up, panic replacing the sickness he felt before.

“M-Mr. Stark?” 

The man was standing upright, his arms crossed over his chest and eyes hidden behind dark glasses. The look he was giving Peter was some mix of anger, disappointment and worry. It was terrifying.

“What were you thinking? Oh. I know. You weren’t. You couldn’t really believe that we wouldn’t find out?”

Peter was still looking up at Mr. Stark and could see his lips moving, but the words were getting lost somewhere on the way. He could feel the dizziness getting worse again. Was this a good moment to mention getting shot? He would have to tell somebody at last, because something was definitely wrong and he stopped hoping that his healing factor could take care of it.

“Mr. Sta-” he tried in a moment of silence, but the man didn’t even notice it.

“Get up, Parker. I promised May to get you home and I don’t lie about things that matter” he was already turning back and going in the direction of a black car parked at the curb. 

Peter got up slowly and did a tentative first step fighting the swaying of his legs. Tony must have thought he was doing it on purpose, trying to delay the whole ordeal. The man came back, grabbed Peter’s shoulder and pulled him towards the car while muttering about teenage punks.

Just before Mr. Stark pushed him into the car Peter saw a man with a kid in his arms stood at the sidewalk and staring at them. Tony must have noticed it as well. 

“Get ready. You still have few years before it starts” he said before getting in and slamming the door shut.

Peter hoped that Mr. Stark would stop his rant when they got in the car, but he was apparently just getting started.

It wasn’t that the boy didn’t want to listen or didn’t feel bad about the whole thing. But the nausea and weakness that were coming in waves were taking up a lot of his mind. 

“Can I-” he tried again.

“No Parker. The adult is talking. You screwed the pooch. How could you lie to May and use me as an excuse? What would-”

Peter looked at his knees and tried to breath slowly. If Mr. Stark took his bowed head and silence as a display of guilt, instead of noticing something was wrong, the boy couldn’t blame him.

The rest of the ride passed in a similiar manner. Tony going on and on with his reprimand and Peter trying to look as if everything was okay. Well, beside the fact that he ran away from home and got caught. 

When they stopped beside Peter’s apartment building he managed to get out of the car without stumbling. It was probably the panic that kept his legs steady enough to walk and not just gave up under him. 

He followed Mr. Stark inside.

Although feeling terrible physically, his consciousness wasn’t much better. After all, everything he did was to not worry either May or Mr. Stark and now they both were not only mad but extremely disappointed with him. 

The moment he saw May standing in the middle of living room, with arms wrapped tightly around herself, he felt like crying. He was an awful nephew.

All he wanted right then was to get into her embrace. Or for her to ruffle his hair. Or at least get a pat on the back. But none of that would happen. Because he screwed up and made her sad and didn’t deserve to be comforted.

“Why would you do that. How could you” was all she said.

The silence fell for a long moment and he could have probably say something about being hurt right then, but the bile in his throat wouldn’t let him.

“Go to your room, Peter. I will call you when I want to talk.”

He could see her eyes fill up with tears. He so badly wanted to apologize, but he knew it wouldn’t change anything. The damage was already made. 

Peter nodded few times, keeping back his own tears, and did as he was told. Closing the door behind himself, he put his backpack down, looked around and… 

Everything went black as he collapsed on the floor.

***

As angry as Tony felt, he didn’t actually plan to get this aggressive with his scolding.

He wanted to be calm and possessed. Let Peter know that he was disappointed without raising his voice. But then he saw the kid on that stupid bench, doing whatever he was doing, and something snapped in him. 

Not because of anger. Nope. Rather the opposite.

The thing was… He cared for that kid so fucking much. If something have happened that last few days and Tony wasn’t there to help him… He wouldn’t be able to live knowing he could have changed it.

Tony felt like hugging Peter and smacking that stupidly brilliant head of his, but it didn’t seem like the thing to do after a kid runs away.

And the next best option was going into the ‘Parker’ and ‘adult is talking’ mode.

As May opened the door to Peter’s room and Tony saw the limp body on the floor, he wished he had rather hugged the kid.

If he wasn’t so busy yelling he would have realized something was wrong.

He would have noticed the paleness on his face or registered the unnatural lack of nervous movements. Or Peter would have said something himself if Tony let him talk.

He was the one that screwed the pooch this time. Hard.

***

Everything felt so freaking heavy. It was hard to lift his eyelids just a tiny bit and his limbs felt like they had been turned into stone.

Everything he could sense felt blurry. The voices he heard close by were muffled. He couldn’t tell if whatever was touching his skin was cold or warm, soft or scrapy. And when he managed to open his eyes, all he saw were two shadows hovering above him.

They might have been telling him something but he couldn’t understand.

***

“Can you believe he had it all inside him?” Tony was sitting in the living room of his apartment in the Compound, turning a little glass phial in his hands.

“Yes, Tony. You told me that at least five times” Pepper was sitting at a nearby table looking through some documents. “I know you can’t just stop worrying about Peter, but it doesn’t seem smart to get so caught up in the past.”

“Oh- I was kind of talking to myself, but... It should have never happened, Pepper. How could I-” his voice was close to breaking. 

“I know you feel responsible for him, but you are not guilty of anything" Pepper was looking at him now, torn between the papers and joining her fiance on the couch. “How about you put a movie on? Peter is safe and he will be back to his usual over-excited and chattering away self soon. You need to relax.”

Tony surrendered and was going through the movie library when FRIDAY spoke from the speakers. 

“Sir? Peter woke up.”

“Good, good. May is there, right?” Tony shifted in his seat a bit. Should he leave them alone for now?

“Ms. Parker is asleep and Peter seems to be getting quite restless.”

“I should go, he might be confused” Tony was already on his way to the door.

“Be calm and gentle!” he heard Pepper say after him.

He was in the elevator when FRIDAY spoke again.

“Sir, it seems that Peter is trying to take out his IV.”

The man got out of the elevator and picked up his pace. By the time he walked into the medical room Peter was sitting sideways on the bed, his legs dangling in the air.

“Going somewhere?” was the first thing that came out of his mouth, but at least his voice was more amused than harsh.

Peter looked up for a short moment and then lowered eyes to his knees.

“Um... B- Bathroom?” the kid whispered, his voice squeaky. 

Tony passed May, still asleep on the sofa, and stood close to Peter. He hesitated for a moment but seeing that the boy wouldn’t meet his eyes, he put a cautious hand on his shoulder. 

Feeling actual resistance and movement was very reassuring in comparison to carrying an unconscious, limp body.

“Lay down kiddo. You shouldn’t be getting up yet” he gently guided Peter back to bed, but he was still avoiding eye contact. “Hey” he said quietly and snapped fingers in front of the brown eyes. “Look at me. Do you need something? Are you in shock?”

All that happened was Peter giving him a quick glance and then looking at the ceiling while he mumbled something.

“I’m old, remember? Speak up” Tony jokingly poked his arm with a finger. That got him an eye roll, some more muttering and eventually a quiet “Just embarrassed, I guess…”

“Because you got caught?” the man said after a silent moment. Peter answered with a shrug. “Do you even know what happened? Aren’t you confused?”

“Well… Karen said I’ve got some kind of infection because of the bullet and I felt pretty terrible, so I guess you brought me to the Compound and it got fixed, because I feel fine now” Peter shrugged again. “You know it’s not the first time I ended up in here.”

“Infection?” Tony couldn’t believe it. The kid shouldn’t be acting so calm about getting shot. He took the glass phial from his pocket and passed it to Peter.

“What is it?” the teenager turned it around, looking at little metal pieces moving inside and frowned.

“You remember the bullet that went through you? Turns out it was some homemade junk. Left eleven pieces of itself inside you. And then your muscles and organs just grew around it. They were too small for the suit sensors to pick up on. Oh, and remember when that robber guy kicked you? Yeah... it caused internal bleeding that didn’t really help the case” He took a moment to look at the young face. “It wasn’t one or even two surgeries Peter, the best doctors needed three to take them all out. You were out for over two days.”

“That sounds serious…” the kid stilled for a moment and then reached for the IV not longer connected to his arm. “Was this something important?”

Tony felt like either rolling his eyes or smacking Peter on the head.

“Oh, you know… Just something to keep you nourished and hydrated in that comatose state... Not that you care about stuff like that when you are awake.” Peter bit down on his lip and looked between the IV and his arm as if trying to decide…

“Don’t put it back in! Are you crazy?”

***

He was still in bed, not that he didn’t want to get out, sitting on top of the covers. May was leaning against the bed frame and Mr. Stark stood to the side with arms crossed over his chest. They were both staring at Peter, who felt a lot like pretending he wasn’t there.

It was their third attempt at talking with him that day. They kept asking about why he did it and tried to be understanding about it, but it didn’t change much. Peter simply knew, whatever he was going to say, they would turn it around into some childish excuses. All he said so far were some vague comments, but he couldn’t keep it that way much longer.

“Can’t we just… Forget it ever happened?” Peter said hopefully and looked up pleadingly.

The adults exchanged a look of disbelief.

“That’s not an option” May said with a deep frown just as Mr. Stark let out a grunt and an exasperated “Hell no!”

The boy felt his cheeks heat up. “Well, I don’t feel like talking about it” he murmured, looking at his hands.

“Oh, you don’t feel like it? Too bad! You are not leaving this room until you stop acting like a child and talk to somebody” Tony declared, pointing a finger at Peter, and stomped out of the room.

The teenager shot a furious look at the engineer’s back and gritted his teeth. Maybe he was being childish, but he didn’t really care.

“Peter… Come on sweetie…” May spoke gently, giving him a worried look and now he just felt even more like a jerk. He gave her a small apologetic look before turning away and burying under the covers.

***

The day went by and Peter was still stuck in that room.

He went through a check up earlier and got cleared to leave the medical, but Mr. Stark wasn’t one to change his mind. And Peter could be just as stubborn.

May, who already took few days off work, went back home for the night and wouldn’t be back until next afternoon. As for Mr. Stark, he had yet to come back after his storming off earlier. Peter was left alone, with nothing to do other than think. And thinking he was quite good at.

After considering all that happened and everything that was said, by him as well as May and Mr. Stark, Peter came to a rather simple conclusion. If the discussion about his behavior was to be logical and not one-sided, somebody neutral had to take part in it.

When he realized that, finding the perfect person was easy.

Ms. Potts was experienced in negotiations, always calm and collected. She didn’t have to raise her voice and everybody respected her without a doubt. And, probably the most important, Mr. Stark did actually listen to her. He didn’t always do as she said of course, but he did listen. Well, usually. It was worth a shot.

“FRIDAY, um- Could you ask Ms. Potts if she would have time to talk with me? I mean, like, tomorrow or something?” Peter spoke out into the empty room and waited for an answer.

Five minutes later he was stepping out of an elevator into Mr. Stark’s private floor. He took few tentative steps before noticing the woman by the kitchen island.

“He- Hello, Ms. Potts” he stuttered out. The boy didn’t actually expect her to invite him over right away. It wasn’t that they never talked before, but usually it was just a greeting and small talk in Mr. Stark’s workshop or passing her in the corridors. Not a full one-on-one conversation.

“Hey there, Peter” she smiled and gestured for him to get closer. Seeing her in jeans and a too big t-shirt was odd but also relaxing. There was soft music playing quietly in the background. “I was making hot chocolate when Fri told me you wanted to meet so I made you one as well” and indeed, there were two mugs sitting on the counter.

“Thanks for- um- finding the time” Peter didn’t really know what to say as he sat at the kitchen island.

“Oh, don’t mention it. Tony is still working and it’s nice to have some company around” she put the mugs and some cookies on the island and sat next to him.

“How are you feeling? Everything healing up alright?”

“Oh, yeah…” Peter took a small sip and smiled at Pepper. ”Wow… That’s really good.”

They sat in comfortable silence drinking, while Peter gathered his thoughts and put some words together. Pepper wasn’t rushing him or commenting on his deep sighs, just waited for the boy to speak.

“I want to talk with May and Mr. Stark. But I just… They will… Whatever reasons I give them, they will turn it into excuses and make me feel bad” he said and Pepper was still quiet, listening intensely. It was all he needed for something to break inside him and just like that, everything was spilling out. 

“I need something to change, because it can’t stay like that. I thought that with May and Mr. Stark on my side it would be easier. That they would support me and yes, they do, but they also put more pressure on me and they never want to listen.”

Peter looked at the woman briefly and she was still looking at him calmly, not accusing, not judging.

“May is great, but… She came up with all this rules, there is like twenty of them. And then she makes up new ones whenever she feels like it. Eat the peas Peter or you aren’t patrolling tonight. Go to the movies. Get the groceries. She knows how important patrolling is for me, so is it fair to use it like that?”

He took a deep breath and continued with his rant.

“I’m so thankful for everything Mr. Stark does for me, but sometimes… Well, he said the suit is mine, but then he calls me and goes all, be home in ten or I will disable the suit. And all that protocols. There are so many. And honestly, I have no idea what most of them is for.”

Peter deflates after that, the tension of the last few days leaving him eventually. He looks up at the woman pleadingly.

“I need somebody to make them understand Ms. Potts, because they won’t listen to me.”

“Well, thank god you came to me, Peter” she said with a smile and put an arm around his back affectionately.

***

Tony left his workshop after midnight and took a detour to check on Peter. He expected to see the boy sleeping but was surprised by an empty bed.

“Peter wasn’t allowed to leave the room, FRIDAY. Why did you let him go?”

“He wanted to talk.”

“What?” he didn’t come to Tony. “Where is he?”

“Peter is at your floor, sir. Together with Ms. Potts.”

Tony frowned and walked out the room. It was hard to keep up with the kid.

Few minutes later he passed the empty kitchen, noticing two mugs left on the counter, and walked into the living room. Pepper was nestled in an armchair, nature documentary playing on tv. She looked at him and, before he could say anything, put a finger to her lips.

“What? Where is Peter?” he whispered not understanding.

“Don’t wake him” she pointed to the couch that he was standing behind. And there, sprawled out with one arm hanging to the ground, Peter was peacefully sleeping. At the second look Tony recognised the too big sweatshirt the boy was wearing as his own. 

“What’s going on?” Tony sighed and nervously rubbed at his face.

“Turns out you screwed up, Tony. Big time. May did as well. And Peter couldn’t handle the two of you on his own” Pepper’s voice was gentle but confident.

“What did I do wrong?” he looked at the kid and felt the guilt growing in his chest. “I never know what I’m supposed to do, Pepper.”

“Don’t worry about it now. We will have a dinner together tomorrow, with Peter and May. You guys need to talk some stuff out.”

At that she turned off the tv and got up. “Let’s go to bed. Peter will be alright here.”

“Shouldn’t I move him? He can sleep in the guest room.”

“You would just wake him and he looks comfortable here” she handed Tony a blanket and disappeared into the corridor with a soft smile.

Tony draped the blanket over Peter and, acting on impulse, brushed the brown hair out of his face.

He stood there for a moment, hand rested on Peter’s head delicately, reflecting on how he got to this moment in his life. Having a perfect fiance and an adopted superhero kid was a lot to process.

***

The space was full of vegetables, fruits and water bottles. Peter grabbed an apple and wondered how long will May’s healthy eating mania last this time around. He closed the fridge and gleefully eyed the list tapped to the door. Placed between May’s work schedule and a menu from their favorite Thai place was a page ripped from a notebook, six short points written in his messy handwriting, a funny doodle of May’s creation on the side.

A week passed already since the dinner they had at the Compound. Surprisingly it didn’t went as horribly as Peter suspected. That was, of course, thanks to Ms. Potts negotiation skills and calming demeanor. There had been few hot moments when everything almost went drastically downhill, but at the end, somehow everything turned out okay.

May’s voice brought him back to the moment. He spun around and saw her looking at him expectantly, phone in hand.

“Tony is asking if you want to stay the night” she repeated with a smirk. As if the answer wasn’t obvious even without him beaming at the prospect.

“Okay Stark, but have him home by noon tomorrow” she was back on the phone and the boy rushed to get his backpack.

***

After an hour-long call from some asshole in a decisive position of one company or another Tony felt a lot like vomiting. He would have ignored this guy hundred times over if it didn’t mean infuriating Pepper. Years of working together taught him to not anger Ms. Potts on things like this. He just recently learned that mad fiance was even worse so he decided to take the call.

A visit to the kitchen, coffee downed in few gulps and remembering Peter left alone in the workshop was all he needed to forget about the conversation.

Approaching the workshop he saw Peter through the glass wall. The kid was sitting cross-legged in a chair and leaning over a laptop. Fingers constantly moving over the keyboard, his head bobbing to some rhythm. As Tony walked in he was met with blaring music. It wasn’t anything from his playlists, but he had spent enough time with Peter to recognise that damned alt-J song.

“What the-” the boy jumped and almost fell of his seat as the music stopped and he saw Tony standing beside him. “Heck.”

“Don’t stress it kid” the man just snorted and gave him an amused glance. He gestured for FRIDAY to put the music back on, just a little quieter. “What are you working on?”

“My problem with calories intake” Peter used air-quotes for that but restrained from rolling his eyes. “I programmed Karen to tell me when my blood-sugar gets too low. I have an hour to eat something, otherwise she will call you.”

Tony sat beside the kid and scanned the code he wrote. Letting Peter work on his suit was a great decision, but he still needed some supervision.

“This index has to go up by at least twenty percent, you can’t wait until you are starving. And make it thirty minutes.”

“Forty-five?” Peter looked at the man hopefully.

“Nope. Hate odd numbers. What’s even the point when you can’t divide by two?” the engineer scowled.

“Um- You can if you use seconds?”

“Still a no. I’ll give you forty, but that’s it.”

The boy rolled his eyes but started to change the code without a word. He knew when to give up at arguing with Mr. Stark by now.

“Snack time protocol, huh?” Tony raised his eyebrows. “You’re getting better with the names. Another forty or fifty of those and you will be as good as I am.”

Peter grunted at the perspective, but relaxed shoulders, foot moving to the music and funny anecdotes the kid showered him with clearly showed he was enjoying himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a lot for reading!
> 
> *After finding somebody drugged you should probably take them to hospital, but it just didn't fit with my idea, so... Yeah. (That's why I made Peter check up on Susan the next day)
> 
> *Why didn't Peter just call May from the suit? I assume she would know he is using the suit then (like its a separate contact in her phone) and it would change the plot as well, thats why.
> 
> Also english isn't my first language so if you noticed mistakes, especially in my grammar, please let me know! :)


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